Tower of London

Sorry for the crappy photos today -- our collegiate visitor Sarah and I went to the Tower of London yesterday and I didn't feel like lugging my real camera. So these are all iPhone shots -- pretty good for a phone, but only OK for a camera.

I'd been to the Tower once before, nine years ago. But this was a first for Sarah, and obviously if you're visiting London the Tower is a must-see attraction. So we made the trek.

The photo above shows a corner of the White Tower (left), which dates from the time of William the Conqueror. It can be a little difficult to wrap your brain around the fact that you're standing in a building with a functioning Norman fireplace!

Lions and baboons made of chicken wire were prowling around the Tower site. These are sculptures by artist Kendra Haste, being shown as part of the Tower's Royal Beasts exhibit (which I must confess we did not see).

An aside: I was very sorry to hear about the death of Ray Bradbury -- at least, as sorry as I could be about someone who died at age 91. I eagerly consumed his books as a teenager, and "The Martian Chronicles" remains an all-time favorite. In the late '90s I wrote a newspaper column about Bradbury, critical of the fact that "Chronicles" had been re-issued with updated and slightly revised text. I argued that such an important work should have been held sacrosanct. To my surprise, Bradbury called me to make his case that revisions were acceptable to keep the work current, and keep readers enthusiastic about the promise of future space travel. I didn't entirely agree, but he was a nice guy, and I wrote a second column giving him vent. Getting a call from Ray Bradbury remains one of my best journalism memories.

Thames Barrier

These strange metallic coccoons are the Thames Barrier, which spans 520 meters of the River Thames and protects the city of London from flooding. If there's a threat of a tidal surge from the ocean, the barrier's 10 steel gates are raised into position to keep the high water from reaching the city.

The barrier was built in 1982 near Greenwich, and there's a small park and information center there for visitors. Sarah and I went yesterday -- she wanted to see the Thames Barrier because it featured in an episode of "Dr. Who," though when we got there she said she didn't recognize it. (A lot of our sightseeing is being dictated by "Dr. Who." For example, we're supposed to go see a phone box somewhere near the Earl's Court tube station that most closely resembles the tardis. Who knew?)

Here you can see the London skyline, including the pointy Shard on the left, Canary Wharf in the middle and the Millennium Dome, looking like a flattened sea urchin. After checking out the barrier we took the tube to Canary Wharf, another "Dr. Who"-related stop, which is mostly just a collection of modern glass-and-steel bank buildings. I felt like I was in Charlotte, N.C.

Then we walked along the south bank of the Thames and took a tour of the reconstruction of Shakespeare's Globe Theatre. We continued over the river on the Millennium Bridge, and past St. Paul's before catching the tube to meet Dave near Regent's Park. The three of us had dinner and went to a brilliantly surreal and bawdy outdoor production of "A Midsummer Night's Dream." It rained pretty steadily right up until curtain time, but the rain miraculously stopped just in time for the show, so we didn't have to endure rescheduling and all that rigmarole. Whew!

Poppies in the Park

Did you catch the big Jubilee concert on TV? We considered going, but after our adventures amid the hordes by the river on Sunday we decided to stay home and watch from the comfort of the couch. I admit when it started I felt a pang of regret that we didn't just dive in and go -- but hey. You can't do everything.

It was a very fun show, with Grace Jones hula-hooping her way through an entire song (she won my personal award for best performance) and Stevie Wonder startling everyone by offering happy birthday wishes to the Queen. (Is Stevie suffering from dementia, we all wondered? Does he not realize it's her Diamond Jubilee, not her birthday? But apparently Stevie was correct -- although the Queen was born in April, her birthday is traditionally celebrated at the end of May or beginning of June.)

Anyway, we enjoyed ourselves watching everything on the BBC, and we cracked a bottle of bubbly and toasted the Queen and her family. When the fireworks went off at the end of the show, we could hear them and see the tops of glittery explosions over the rooftops from our balcony.

Earlier in the day, Sarah and I went to the Sherlock Holmes Museum, which she really wanted to see. It's a house on Baker Street decorated with Victorian detritus to look like Sherlock's home and office. I had the uneasy feeling that a lot of people who visit don't realize that Sherlock Holmes is fiction.

Afterwards, we took a stroll through Regent's Park, where white daisies are growing in profusion along the canal and we found some big, orange poppies near the rose garden.

Jubilee street parties were held all over the country yesterday. Here's the party in our neighborhood, just a block or two away from our flat. It seemed to have the same Caribbean flavor as the Notting Hill Carnival and featured some pumping reggae music. We wandered past just to see what was going on, but we didn't stay.

Flotilla Madness

Well, here we are at the Queen's Jubilee flotilla. What, you can't see us? Well, that's because there were a BAZILLION people there! (Actually I'm not in the above shot -- I just took it -- so don't bother trying to find us.) From my position deep in the crowd I could see the river if I stood on tiptoe, but poor Sarah -- who is shorter than I -- couldn't see much more than the tops of passing flags and masts. Still, we expected that, so we weren't disappointed at all. In fact, we had a blast. (Dave stayed home, electing to watch events unfold on TV.)

We stood in an area with a large viewing screen, so we could see everything close-up as it occurred. The tricky part was figuring out which boats were on the river right in front of us, relative to what was happening on the screen.

I saw the gilded trim and flags of the Gloriana, the large rowing vessel that led the procession, pass in front of us and I thought it might have been the royal barge. But then, eventually, the real barge came into view.

This is the best shot I could get -- it moved surprisingly quickly and the crowds were so thick, I could only hold my camera in the air, click and pray. (I wish I'd thought to manually set the focus rather than rely on auto, which is why the crowd is in focus but the boat isn't. Oh well.) That blurry red speck on the top deck to the right is Kate Middleton, and I believe Prince William is standing next to her. I could see suited male figures with white gloves waving, but I couldn't be sure who they were. And I couldn't see the queen herself.

Hmm. There is a figure in white with a hat to the left of Kate Middleton. Could that be her? Or is that Camilla? Some focus would have helped, here.

The people with the best views were those who could get some elevation, either on the balcony of a lucky friend...

... or on a parent's shoulders.

I spent most of the time just photographing the crowds. The get-ups were quite amusing. I have a set of photos on Flickr here, if you'd like to see more.

Someone launched these flaming lanterns, which seemed crazily hazardous to me, but they looked great sailing through the sky.

As we were leaving, I spotted this ridiculously photogenic group atop a roof overlooking the river. I mean, really. They could be models.

Fortunately we were near the beginning of the procession so we got out of there before the heavy rain started. We were on our way back to the tube by that point -- we had to walk all the way from the Pimlico riverfront to Knightsbridge to find a tube station that wasn't immobilized by the sheer volume of people. We managed to get home pretty easily, and we ended the day with a very British dinner -- curry from Masala Zone.

'Really Neat'

Sarah, the daughter of my college friends Ann and Greg, has arrived here from Paris for a weeklong stay. She was studying French for a semester at the Sorbonne (!) and now wants to take in a bit of Blighty before returning to the USA. I met her at St. Pancras train station yesterday afternoon, and we went out to dinner at our local pub before coming home and watching the third "Lord of the Rings" movie "on telly," as the British would say. I'm not sure whether that counts as seeing Blighty, but it's a start.

Today we're planning to head down to the river to catch the Queen's Jubilee flotilla. It is indeed raining, but I can stand a little rain. I don't really have much of a plan -- just to take the tube to an area that I think might not be too crowded, and hope for the best.

I have seen the Queen once before. Back in 1991, when I was working as a young reporter in Florida, she came to Tampa on the royal yacht Britannia and visited MacDill Air Force Base, a command center during the first Gulf War. The visit was very tightly controlled and I couldn't get very close to her. There was some sort of reception, but access was restricted and only major regional media were invited -- not my mid-size daily from the next county. So I had to settle for seeing her on the waterfront as she disembarked from Britannia, greeted local officials, waved to the throngs and got into her limo for the ride to the base. I then raced ahead to a different part of town to catch a closer glimpse of the passing car.

From my journal on May 28, 1991:

"I have done some fun stuff. On May 20, for instance, Queen Elizabeth II visited Tampa and I covered the visit. It was great fun. I actually saw her face fairly close to me as she rode by in her limousine, waving out the windows. She looked really neat -- very stately and dignified."

Oh, brother -- "really neat" was the best I could do?! Fortunately I offered more description in my published article, mentioning her yellow floral print dress and trademark white gloves, her diminutive stature and the enthusiasm of the crowd. I used that article as a clip for a while, submitting it to potential employers as one of my best. But then I read it recently and thought, "You know, this isn't that good!" Which is hopefully a sign that I have progressed.

(Photo: A vaguely royalty-related shot from Camden, last Wednesday.)

Jubilee on Portobello Road

Everyone has been gearing up for Jubilee Weekend at the markets along Portobello and Golborne roads. By yesterday, flags and bunting were fluttering from shops, market stalls and street lamps. The owners of this shop on Golborne Road even installed a large, elegant portrait of the Queen.

This was the scene on Portobello, where the crowds will no doubt be thick today, as they are every Saturday. (Though the weather is supposed to deteriorate over the weekend into chilly rain.)

Who says hot dogs are all-American?

I'm pretty sure this guy has that big flag out regularly. His specialty seems to be British paraphernalia.

The windows of our corner pub are strung with bunting. Dave and I prefer another pub nearby, which has better food, but this one has an awesome beer garden in the back. It's great on summer afternoons and evenings. I wonder what Jubilee-related mischief they have planned?

Inspired, I went out and bought my own bunting. Just £1.99 at the hardware store! (I, of course, had only £1.90 in my pocket. Perhaps not wanting to discourage my enthusiasm, the store owner let me have it for that price, but I need to remember to take him another nine pence!)

I strung the bunting on our balcony. My relatives who fought in the American Revolution are probably turning in their graves, but hey, when in London...

Internet Abstention

Lately, I’ve been trying to take a break from the computer. Or at least the Internet.

(Side note: AP style always taught me that “Internet” is capitalized as the proper name of a defined thing, even though the Internet nowadays seems more like a huge, amorphous force. That’s why I’m capitalizing it, in case you wondered. You’ll probably also notice that I am not consistent on this or many other points.)

Being online really is a huge, huge time suck. I have a daily routine that involves getting up, making coffee, writing for and posting to my blog, reading other blogs, uploading eight or ten pictures to Flickr, and reading an assortment of news sites including The New York Times, the BBC, the Guardian and sometimes the St. Petersburg Times. Then I often stray off into aimless Facebooking and web browsing, and before I know it it’s 11 a.m. and I’m still in my pajamas.

Since last week I’ve been trying to curtail the latter part of that routine. After indulging my news habit, I close my computer and I leave it closed. I read, or go for a walk or run, or run errands, or go to the park or whatever. I get out and about, engage with the world. (The real world.). I might return to the computer if I need the word processor or iPhoto, but I try not to go online until I check my e-mail again in the evening.

My hope is that will help me waste less time -- not that time spent on Facebook or YouTube is inherently wasted. It just needs to be apportioned, like ice cream or gin.

There's something exhausting about the impulsiveness that being online creates, at least in me. I'll click from here to there, to this link, to that link, and after a while I've lost my original purpose. So much easy information! I don't miss the days when you had to go look something up in a dictionary or encyclopedia -- after all, that was kind of a pain. But it took a mindfulness, an intention, that is now much diminished.

I’ve enjoyed the experiment so far. We’ll see how long it lasts!

(Photo: Door details in Islington, Sunday.)